Avast Premier is the most complex and advanced security solution of the Avast! series. Advertised by the company as the most powerful Avast ever made, the product provides a state-of-the-art collection of security tools that is hard to compete with.

Avast! Premier is built on the same engine as the other products issued by the company, but compared to the closest of its siblings, Avast! Internet Security, it sports complementary highlights such as an automatic software updater, a military-grade data shredder, as well as the possibility to access computers regardless of the owner’s whereabouts.

The common features of the whole Avast! series are real-time protection, various scan methods (quick, full, custom), a myriad of shields for the web, mail accounts, Internet Messengers and P2P connections, as well as a comfortable management of the firewall and antispam modules.

However, as mentioned above, Avast! Premier holds exclusivity on three major features, the ones that make it the most advanced of the company’s series. The first one is the Automatic Software Updater, a module that automatically downloads and install the latest virus database updates, while spearing you the trouble of doing this yourself.

The Data Shredder component provides permanent data deletion through a military-grade erasing process that purges data beyond recovery. If you treasure your privacy, this is an excellent solution for the job.

The last of the three features is the AccessAnywhere component, which is more of a service that allows you to connect remotely to a computer that has Avast! Premier installed and control it, regardless of your location.

In a nutshell, we found the differences between Avast! Premier and the other products of the series to be quite compelling and worth the extra cash difference. It’s a small price to pay for a richer, more sophisticated security solution.